Community Outreach

Juneteenth Celebration at the Heritage Museum of Orange County

The Santa Ana team kicked off their summer event schedule by participating in the Juneteenth Celebration at the Heritage Museum of Orange County.

Pictured is the Kellogg House, the centerpiece of the Heritage Museum of Orange County

As it was our first event, our set up and activity plans were a bit of an experiment. Our booth included an information table with project material and a laptop displaying the Historypin.org website, a "Mapping Migration Stories" activity table, and a photo booth area.

Information Table and Booth Set Up

What worked: 

• The flyers provided at the information table were very helpful to individuals requesting more information about the project. We have since had all of our material translated to Spanish. 
• The sign-up sheets allowed us to record enough information about what an individual was interested in and how to contact them, without to being to laborious. 

What didn't work:

• The only difficulty we really had at the information table was the laptop displaying the Historypin.org website. Due to our positioning, the sun-to-shade transitions made it difficult to keep the laptop screen visible. We had to continuously change the brightness of the screen, which inevitably drained the battery. When we decide on a better alternative to the laptop, we would like to reinstate the use of Historypin.org at future events. 

Mapping Migration Stories
What worked:

• The overall idea of pinning the migrations was really successful and provided an amazing visual representation of the movements into and out of Santa Ana, CA/Orange County, CA. People really enjoyed pinning their stories. 
• Using RED pins to mark place of birth, and WHITE pins to mark places of migration made it easy to distinguish one migration story from another. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

What didn't work:

• We used a small pin to mark Santa Ana, CA/Orange County, CA, but it wasn't strong enough to hold all the strings wrapped around it. 
• We were marking the migration story paths with name flags, but we were having a difficult time keeping them on with the wind. 
• The map we were using was HUGE! It measured about 6.5ft x 4ft. and needed 3 tables to hold it. The map and tables took up all the space under one canopy. 

Photo Booth

What worked:

• Jessica (Santa Ana, CA) created chalk boards to help participants share their migration stories in our photo booth.  This prompt allowed the participants to provide us with a brief overview of their migration story. 
• Participants were asked to fill out a "Bio Card" before taking a photo. This helped us to keep a record of participants and their stories. 
• As photo booths are a bit of a "in-thing" right now, we saw a lot of excitement for participation in this area. We uploaded the photos to our Instagram account so participants could tag themselves. We used the hashtag "#memoriesofmigration" to create an album of sorts for easy viewing. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

What didn't work:

• We used a white backdrop for the participants to stand in front of, however, due to height differences, some of the area behind those in the photos were not blocked out by the white. Although it is not a huge problem, it is something that we plan to fix for future events. 

Overall, the event was a success and we had a great time! It was definitely a learning experience, and we plan to apply what we have learned to our future community outreach efforts.